


The Armory

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes, Percival needs time alone to think. It’s not that he’s a slow thinker, he just takes it seriously. Most of the men just blurt out the first thing in their heads, but Percival needs more time for consideration."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Armory

**Author's Note:**

> Why this ship? Why the hell not? Neither character is very well-developed on the show, so I figure I can do what I want.

Sometimes, Percival needs time alone to think. It’s not that he’s a slow thinker, he just takes it seriously. Most of the men just blurt out the first thing in their heads, but Percival needs more time for consideration. He heads up into the Armory, ready to sharpen his sword and think about Elyan. Just because thinking is serious doesn’t mean that it can’t be pleasant.

It had started slowly, this thing with Elyan. He’s grateful for that. His size has always scared away anyone nice, leaving him pursued by men and women who scared him with their offers, their intentions. It’s not that he’s innocent or naive, he just doesn’t like hurting people. Well, he likes hurting bad people, but that’s something else entirely. Elyan doesn’t frighten him, doesn’t ask for too much.

—

Elyan was the only one who didn’t laugh the day the new knights were fitted for their armor. Percival still remembers it with a blush at the tips of his ears. None of the mail coats fit over his shoulders, and the one that did made it impossible for him to raise his arms. Eventually, the old armorer had thrown an unfinished coat at him and stomped out, personally offended by Percival’s inability to conform to proper knightly proportions. Gwaine nearly died. Blushing furiously, Percival fit the coat over his head—just the torso, no arms at all. He felt like a beggar, a little boy trying to pass for a knight. He though Gwaine was actually having a seizure, he was laughing so hard. Then Elyan spoke.  
“I think it’s brave.”  
“What?”  
“Think about it. I think I’d hesitate before attacking a man who doesn’t even bother to protect his arms. That’s your proof of skill, right there.”  
“There’s brave and then there’s foolish, Elyan,” Leon argued. Leon, the practical one.  
“No more foolish than a knight who cannot raise his sword.”  
Leon shrugged. Gwaine stepped forward and squeezed Percival’s biceps, face still red from laughing.   
“On second thought, I definitely approve. Absolutely delicious—”  
Leon yanked him back by the scruff of the neck. “Shut up, Gwaine. You’ll scare the boy.” But his eyes were laughing.  
Percival looked at Elyan. His eyes were calm. Like— Well, Percival was no good at poetry. But at the moment, he thought they looked like polished stones at the bottom of a river. Solid and dark and deep. He nodded once.

—

Percival never had a crisis of identity, he realizes, scraping the whetstone along the blade with a precise, measured strokes. Camelot could hardly cast a disapproving eye on relationships like theirs. Not with the King’s singular … difficulties. Everybody—well at least every knight—knows that King Arthur is hopelessly in love with both a maidservant and a manservant. The other knights shake their heads sadly, knowing that Arthur will eventually have to give it up and find a suitable queen. Percival doesn’t quite understand it. The way he sees it, Arthur is the King. If he wants to marry a maidservant and a manservant, he is within his rights to do so. And Merlin and Gwen seem to get along quite well; he’s sure they wouldn’t mind. He thinks these things to himself, though, because he’s sure that he would sound stupid and they would make fun of him if he said them aloud. He keeps most of his opinions to himself. Well, now he keeps them between himself and Elyan. He smiles again.

—

A few weeks after the Armory incident, he and Elyan were at the Tavern, room-spinningly drunk. Well, Percival was on his way to becoming room-spinningly drunk. He could still talk and sit upright, though. He was explaining to Elyan why he was afraid that he would never find a wife.  
“It scares them all away. It’s not even my fault! I’m not as stupid as I look—”  
“You don’t—” Elyan’s mouth moved for a moment until his voice caught up. “You don’t look shtupid. Not at  _all_.  _They’re_  stupid. Forget them. If they’re shcared of you, then they don’t  _know_  you at all.”  
“Yeah. Yeah, but it’s lonely, you know.”  
Elyan looked at time with those river-stone eyes and grabbed his hand. It was almost like a brotherly shake, but then he raised it and set it against his cheek. Percival lost his breath for a moment, marveling in how soft it was, the skin there. Impossibly soft. He found his breath only to lose it again as Elyan curled his fingers around Percival’s hand. The contrast of their skin made his mouth drop open, just a sliver

( _He still loves it, the contrast of their skin. It’s like— Well. Percival is still no good at poetry. But he remembers one summer day, when he was a young boy, lying in the field behind his parents’ house. His mother had hung the washing out on a rope tied between two trees. She had cleverly knotted the sleeves in the ropes so that their clothes swung freely and seemed to dance in the breeze. He remembers, clear as if it was happening now, his mother’s long, dark dress and his father’s light nightshirt tangling and untangling as they danced and twisted. It was beautiful. He imagines that this is how he and Elyan look, together, twisting and tangling. Well._ )

Then Elyan dropped his hand to the table and reached for the tankard again, eyes turning to the rough wood and not turning back to Percival. He proceeded to get blazing drunk, until Percival and to half carry him back to the castle. He didn’t mind, it was actually quite nice. Elyan was nice. Halfway back, Elyan held up a wavering hand and leaned up against the side of the cottage.  
“Think— sick—” he managed and bent in half. Percival kept a steady hand on his back until the danger passed. This was what he was here for. Elyan was smart, but sometimes didn’t think before doing things like leaping into fights or drinking twelve tankards of ale. Percival always thought things through, he took it seriously. That’s why they were a good team.  
“Okay now,” Elyan breathed, leaning back into Percival. Somehow, he ended up pressed against him, head pillowed on Percival’s broad chest. Percival felt no need to move, particularly not when a sleepy smile grew across his friend’s face.   
“You alright?” he whispered. Elyan hummed. Percival gave into the temptation to run his fingers over the dark curly hair. He scratched a little and Elyan hummed again. Percival smiled. He liked having his scalp scratched, too. They stood there for what must have been a long time, because suddenly Elyan gave a loud snore. Percival hefted his friend over his shoulder and carried him home.  
The next morning at breakfast, he sat down beside Elyan, feeling just a little bit awkward.  
“How are you?”   
“Been better,” Elyan replied with a slightly sick smile. “Not as bad as it could be, though. At least I remember everything.”  
Percival blushed. Elyan grinned at him and, before Leon and Gwaine argued their way into the room, pressed his forehead against Percival’s shoulder, grinning. Percival had no idea what that meant, but he liked it anyway.

—

The sword is as sharp as it’s going to get. He’s been doing more thinking than sharpening, anyway. He hears familiar footsteps pounding down the hall and smiles, broader than before. It’s funny, he thinks, how you can know the weight of a person by sound. If you pay attention.   
Elyan bursts into the room. “Lord Agravaine has reports of more mercenaries coming from the east. We’re to gather for a scouting mission.”  
Percival sheathes his sword and picks up his cloak, making to follow Elyan out the door. Before the other man can leave, he reaches out to grab his arm, gently. Elyan stops and turns to him with a big open grin. Percival leans down to his ear, biting lightly at the curve of it.  
“Fight smart, all right?” he murmurs, and Elyan shivers. “I mean it.  We have things to do tonight.”  
“Do we?” Elyan arches an eyebrow. Percival winks. “Well, let’s get this over with, then. Anyway,” he says as he turns to go. “I’m not too worried. You’ve got my back.”  
Percival, checks his armor one last time and follows him out the door. 


End file.
